Journalists and cartoonists are being targeted in India, contrary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s global stance on free speech and fostering democratic values in cyberspace, the Editors Guild of India said June 14.
The government itself heaps pressure on these professionals if and when their views are critical of the establishment, the journalists’ body said.
“Journalists and cartoonists critical of the government are being targeted on social media, as pressures are being mounted by the government on these platforms to remove such critical journalists on the specious ground that they are violating the law of the land,” the Editors Guild said.
“All of this is contrary to the commitments that Prime Minister Narendra Modi made at the G7 Summit to democracy, openness, and against authoritarianism,” it said in a press statement.
The media release expressed shock at the Uttar Pradesh Police’s “cavalier” treatment of the mysterious death ...

An alleged group of Hindu extremists have chased away Christians from a village in Odisha after destroying their houses.
The incident occurred on June 8 at Sikapai village in Rayagada district. The village has some 40 families, including 8 Christian. Upajukta Singh, the village pastor, said the attackers came from Sikarpai, another village. “They could not tolerate the presence of eight families of Sikarpai practicing Christian faith,” the pastor said. According to Singh, the radicals destroyed the houses of Christians and drove them out from their native village. The 60-year-old pastor said the attackers humiliated some Christian women when they went to fetch water from a well, 1 km away. The miscreants broke the bore well and the women had to return home with empty pots and in fear, the pastor said...

Relatives of a pastor in northern India killed his Christian father with axe and sword blows and seriously wounded the church leader and his brother for leaving tribal religion, sources said. While local media and police portrayed the May 18 attack in Rajasthan state as a dispute over land, Pastor Ramesh Bumbariya said his step-uncles and cousins assaulted his family for their faith because they left animistic tribal religion for Christianity in 2007. “My cousins and their families insist that we abandon our Christian faith and follow the ancestral faith,” Pastor Bumbariya told Morning Star News. “When we refused and remained firm in our Christian beliefs, they began to create trouble for us by raising land issues.” When a group of relatives including men, women and children attacked his home in Thep village, Khajooria, Kotra, Udaipur District, armed with guns, axe, swords and wooden clubs...

Police in the eastern Indian state of Odisha have filled a first information report after a Hindu group attacked an under-construction church.
The Protestant church in Badaguda village in Koraput district was attacked by more than 150 Hindu “fundamentalists” on May 16, according to Sajan K. George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians.
“As of now, the police are investigating the case and no arrest has been made, but we have full faith in the judiciary and believe that the case will soon be solved,” he said.
“There are 12 tribal Christian families belonging to the Lutheran church and the village has some 60 Hindu families.
“In spite of the challenging situation existing in our country due to the severe attack of Covid-19, goons continue to rule the roost in Koraput district. Even in July last year, an attack on eight Christians....

A pastor in eastern India contracted COVID-19 while seeking treatment at hospitals where personnel were reluctant to admit him for injuries sustained in a Hindu extremist assault last month, sources said.
Pastor Ramnivas Kumar suffered a hairline fracture of his shoulder and internal injuries in the April 22 assault in Pritamadi village, Ranjitpur Shivanagar in Sitamarhi District, Bihar state on him and his wife, Pinky Kumari, which left her unconscious. The Hindu villagers also assaulted the pastor’s uncle, Nagendra Thakur, who along with Kumari sustained head and internal injuries, along with bruising.
The day of the aattack, government hospital personnel initially delayed treating Pastor Kumar, saying they had to wait for police to arrive since it was an assault case.
“We waited for the police to arrive for a long time,” area Christian leader Solomon Ghosh told Morning Star News...'

Father Stan Swamy refuses hospitalization and invokes the right to release on  bail.  The 84-year-old Indian Jesuit detained in Taloja prison since last October on charges of terrorism for his commitment to the tribal populations, yesterday appeared in person in videoconference in front of the Mumbai High Court convened to assess his health condition.
In recent days - after the denunciation by his family and brother jesuits about the worsening of his physical condition already undermined by Parkinson's disease - Father Swamy had been taken to JJ Hospital, a public hospital in Mumbai, to be examined.  The cough and fever reported by the religious in a telephone interview, had led to fear of his having contracted  Covid-19, as has already happened to other inmates in the Taloja prison.
The High Court would have consented to his admission to the hospital but - during a ...